Enemy tst-1

by Paul Evan Hughes

  She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, a frail, gaunt figure just now becoming a woman. Yet her eyes betrayed her true age. Her haunting silver eyes were the ancient eyes of someone who has seen too much, lived too much, hurt too much for someone her age.

  Her light brown hair fell into her eyes, and she swept it back in a reflex gesture. Patra noticed with some trepidation that the hair was not entirely brown… Some disturbingly silver strands highlighted it throughout. And her face shimmered not only with the perspiration of her exhaustion but also with the inhuman sheen of the countless infinitesimal strands of silver interwoven with her flesh. She shook with exhaustion and pressure.

  “Judas Golgotha Mara Commander West, Sapphire.”

  West spun around to find Patra gazing quietly at him. He looked back at Zero-Four questioningly, but Zero-Four motioned for silence. West turned back to the image.

  Jennings was mesmerized. “Can she really be the commander of one of these,” he motioned to the vessel around him, “and be so young? She looks so…so tired.”

  Zero-Four tilted his head in an almost tender gesture. “Sapphire West. Made commander at age fourteen. Led the Altwhen Containment Forces. A hero.” There was an air of sad reverence about Zero-Four as he looked at the wasted figure before him on the screen. He whispered, almost to himself, “Children fighting wars of time. Children.”

  Patra’s head looked up to meet the gaze of the young woman projected ghost-like before her.

  Silver eyes…

  The warrior child.

  My god. The warrior child.

  She buried the thought deep, deep in her mind.

  On the screen, the girl turned from Patra and spoke again. “And you are Judas Golgotha…” She hesitated.

  ((simon. judas golgotha simon.))

  “Simon? I thought you were a Gethsemane. Reynald told me—”

  ((reynald? is he with you? is he safe?))

  Her eyes were cast downward, and Zero-Four noted how tears stood on the verge of running down her cheeks. “He’s dead.”

  ((oh. i…he…he was—))

  “—Maggie’s captain. He was a good man, and he gave his life for the Judas. He—…” Her voice trailed off, and Zero-Four knew from her concentration that she was communicating with her Judas, Mara.

  She snapped herself out of her reverie, signaled by the silent communication with Mara. Her face became panic. “We have to get out of here now. The wave’s getting close—”

  “What wave?” Zero-Four broke in. “The timesweep waves coming from upwhen?”

  “The Stream—It—.” Sapphire didn’t know where to begin. “To destroy the Enemy fleets and the Mujahadin, Reynald and the others inverted their Shadows in the Stream—” “Sweet Richter… They released the reformat virus? What effect—”

  “The Stream’s been splintered. It’s falling apart, tearing from existence from the future to the past, rewriting the program with an empty reality. It’s drawing near.” The look of desperation on her face was enough to convince Zero-Four. “We need to leave now!”

  “Simon, prepare to enter the Stream on a Purpose-point vector. Maximum speed.”

  ((yes, michael.))

  “Sapphire, is your fleet ready?”

  “As ready as it’ll ever be.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  They left the When, abandoning Malachi’s body to whatever fate would have it.

  ANY SIGN OF THE VIRUS((?))

  NONE YET…BUT THEY WILL COME. THEY ALWAYS DO. THEY WILL NEVER BOW DOWN TO US.

  READY PATTERN LOAD PLACEMENT FOR FINAL COUNTDOWN INITIATION. THIS TIME THE PURPOSE WILL BE COMPLETED, AND ONLY WE, THE HOLY, SHALL REMAIN. ONLY THE VISION OF OMEGA WILL REMAIN.

  ENERGY LOAD IN PLACE.

  RELEASE CONTAINMENT SEALS.

  SEALS RELEASED. PATTERN LOAD INFUSED.

  ASCENTION AWAITS US. OMEGA WILL BE COMPLETED.

  Zero-Four stood on the bridge watching the Stream swirl by in a nightmare cacophony. He was lost in his thoughts.

  “Michael?”

  Zero-Four knew they would come back, knew the question before they asked it. Zero-Four turned reluctantly, looked at these innocent people, dreaded what he must tell them.

  “She’s your daughter.” He whispered, barely audible.

  West held Patra close. He shook his head, uncomprehending. “How’s that possible? How could—”

  “Time is a cycle.” Zero-Four sat, hunched forward, his hands limply hanging between his knees, the gauntlet interfaces so painfully visible. He looked old. Wasted. “Time’s a cycle, and it’s our curse. We float through it in so many ways.”

  “This isn’t the end.” Patra spoke gravely, knowingly. “This war’s only just begun for us.”

  Zero-Four looked at her, a sad smile on his face. He slowly nodded. “It’s just begun.” He looked back at the floor.

  “I couldn’t tell you before. You weren’t ready. I wasn’t ready, but time’s running out.”

  “Tell us.”

  Zero-Four sighed, the sigh of ages spent fighting the war between times.

  “I knew at some point in this war, I’d have to find someone… That I’d meet someone who’d be right for the mission.”

  “What mission?”

  Zero-Four laughed quietly to himself, his smile breaking Patra’s heart.

  “This isn’t a mission from Command. This is a decision that I had to make by myself. They never wanted to complete the task, but I now know that it’s the only way.”

  West sat down next to Zero-Four. “Michael, you want us to do something for you. Just tell us.”

  Zero-Four turned to West and looked into his eyes. Yes, he’s the one.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  West shook his head. “We’ve never met before you rescued us.”

  Zero-Four nodded. “Yes, we have. We met an eternity into the future, on a world that was falling apart. On a world that the Enemy was uploading. There was only room for the children, and you placed your twin daughters on the escape vessel. You gave us your daughters so that they could survive, and you remained behind to die in the Enemy upload.”

  West’s face was blank. “We have to leave, don’t we?”

  “I have to send you into the future.”

  “But why?”

  Zero-Four lips quivered barely noticeably before he spoke, but Patra saw and understood before he uttered the words. “You have to kill me before I can build the machine.”

  West’s face remained cold and blank. “You’re sending us to kill you.”

  “As a child. Before there’s any chance of me even thinking of the machine. You have to kill me before I can destroy everything again.”

  Jennings shook his head, a frown on his face. “You can’t blame yourself for all of this. There’s no way you could have known that the machines—“

  “That doesn’t matter anymore. The fact is that I built a machine that would attempt to end all of existence. And it may still succeed, unless I can guarantee that I never think of the machine in the first place. The only way to guarantee that’s to make sure I’m not alive.”

  A heavy silence filled the room. The only sound was the non-sound of Simon racing furiously into the past.

  “I first realized what had to be done at the resurrender.”

  “You’ve said that word before.”

  Zero-Four stood, paced slowly around the circular chamber. “The resurrender. We engaged the black around the third planet’s moon, but there were so many… We sent a small force to the planet surface to save as many people as we could. Richter stayed behind to lead the forces battling the Enemy. There were so many.

  “I was on one of the rescue vessels. We loaded as many people as we could, including your twin daughters, onto the Judas. Maggie and Simon were among the rescue Judas that day… If they’d stayed in moon orbit, they would’ve been killed. We left the atmosphere to find a vast field of dead Judas and a waiting armada of Enemy. It was the longest and b
loodiest battle we’d fought up to that point.

  “Most of the rescue vehicles were destroyed as soon as they left the atmosphere. The Enemy swept down upon the planet and began the upload. But the battle raged on above the surface. They were about to capture my vessel when Richter distracted them, flew between us. Richter fought like a madman, taking down so many of the damned before they engulfed his vessel, the Lazarus. In the instant before they uploaded him, he called out to me, to all of us. He commanded us to leave, to escape before the Enemy took us all. He gave his life so that we could escape. He commanded us to regroup, to build our forces again, and to attack the Enemy with no mercy at every possible opportunity, to attack them with the last of our strength until we ourselves were no more. He told us never to surrender again.

  “He could’ve killed himself before the Enemy took him, but by sending his last message he gave them enough time to capture his pattern. We barely made it out of there, but we did as he’d commanded. We regrouped, we rebuilt, and we’ve not surrendered again. That’s why I have to die. Richter was consumed by Omega, when it should have been me, Omega’s creator. He died so that I could live. He wanted me to be the Judas commander. As it was, Hannah Kilbourne took over. I’ve never deserved Richter’s sacrifice.”

  Zero-Four regarded them with eyes that were beyond cold.

  “I haven’t lived since Richter died. With my death, this war will never happen.”

  West looked resolutely at the black of the floor. “You’re sending us into the future to kill you. And then what?”

  “You’ll live out your days in the future. You’ll grow old. And hopefully you’ll never have to put your daughters on a Judas and send them into the sky. Hopefully you’ll live in a world that’ll never see the Enemy. You’ll grow old and die together in the future without the Enemy war.”

  “If we kill you, this won’t happen.”

  “There’s no guarantees. I’m not the only person to envision the emulated escape from the dying planet. But that’s where you come in. You’ll be a safeguard against the invention of the machines. You have to ensure that the machine’s never built. Your daughters will have to ensure that the machine’s never built. They must ensure that the Judas legacy is never lost, and that the Enemy is never created.”

  Tears rolled down Patra’s face. “Lifetimes we haven’t lived yet, deaths we haven’t died…I had a vision of this, of three people crashing from the stars…But now all of that’s gone, and all I see, all I hear, is the whispers. Faint words, a constant hissing sound at the back of my mind.”

  “The Enemy.”

  “Yes. Urgent. The conversations are so fast. Like they’re finally ready. For their ascension. For the completion of Omega. Time’s running out.”

  Jennings looked gravely at Zero-Four. “So how do we get there, Michael? How do we begin?”

  Zero-Four studied the three innocents before him. “No one’s forcing you to do this. I can’t command you to give your futures to this cause. I can’t—”

  “We know, Michael.” Jennings interrupted. “We know. I can’t speak for Patra and West, but I give my life freely to this cause. I’ll die for the Judas.”

  West looked up. “So will I. To save the future…”

  “And to save the past,” Patra continued. “I’ll go where they go. I give myself to the Judas.”

  They stood as one, the saviors of futures long dead.

  Simon raced onward into the night.

  (has he spoken to them?)

  ((yes. it’ll proceed as planned. they’ll take my longboat. it will at least get them there.))

  (they’re brave.)

  ((yes.))

  (you know we won’t survive this.)

  ((i know.))

  (perhaps…)

  ((what?))

  (the longboats are capable of limited shadow jumps.)

  ((with residual shadow energy.))

  (perhaps…if we’re sending them to the specified when, perhaps there’s a way to save our other passengers. i have two standard complements of droptroops on board…)

  ((what are you saying?))

  (we could use the longboats to transport our pattern caches to safety…to spread them throughout time. to ensure that the judas will live on.)

  ((guardians…sprinkled through time. watching, waiting.))

  (making sure the enemy doesn’t rise again. diffusing into the native populace. devoting their lives to keeping the judas legacy alive.)

  ((can we do this to them? can we expect this of them?))

  (they’ve given so much already. if they stay with us, they’ll die. if they go, they’re given life again, hopefully, a life forever free of the enemy.)

  ((but if the enemy awakens once more—))

  (they’ll end it.)

  “I’m not going to leave you, Simon.”

  ((it’s the only way, michael. if you stay with me, you’ll die. if you go, there’s the hope of a normal life for you.))

  “Simon, I…I can’t go. I don’t deserve to go.”

  ((you have to.))

  “But you—”

  ((don’t worry about me. i have a plan.))

  “What plan?”

  ((time is dying. the stream’s collapsing and being reformatted into an empty universe, but the enemy have enough energy amassed at the point to repel this wave of destruction. if a shadow were inverted at the precise moment—))

  “Simon, if you invert your Shadow, you’ll be destroyed.”

  ((i know.))

  Zero-Four spun around in blind fury, slammed his fist against the wall. Blood trickled from his knuckles.

  ((if the stream collapses all the way, there’s no hope. the reformat virus will erase all traces of human existence in the void. time will never have existed. maybe it’s fate that the pattern energy stored at the point by the enemy will help us rewrite time. if we can repel the wave, time will be born anew. existence will be rewritten with the pattern energy, and you’ll be alive, michael. humanity will be alive.))

  “Simon, I…You mean so much to me.”

  ((then do this for me. for maggie, too.))

  Zero-Four relented.

  “I’m going with you.”

  (no, sapphire. you can’t.)

  “Bloody hell I can’t. I’m your commander.”

  (no. you aren’t coming with me.)

  “Mara, I’m not abandoning you.”

  (you can’t come with me.)

  “Why not?”

  (because if this succeeds, you’ll have your whole life ahead of you. don’t worry about me. i lived a long life even before becoming a judas so long ago. i lived to become an old woman, a grandmother, and i want you to at least have that chance.)

  “But Mara…” Sapphire was on the verge of tears. “First my parents. Then Jade. Then Reynald. I can’t lose you too.”

  (there, there, ’phire. it’ll be all right.)

  The webs in the battle chamber embraced the frail form of Sapphire West in an almost gentle, motherly way. If Mara had possessed a mechanical heart, it would have been broken.

  But Sapphire would have a chance to live free of the Enemy. How many trillions had never had that chance?

  The Judas fell quietly to the beginning of time.

  The longboat.

  Jennings, Patra, West. Each was secured safely in an impact chair. Sensors and wires maintained a constant link from these three precious pieces of cargo to the automaton consciousness of the longboat. Zero-Four looked on from a viewscreen.

  “Good luck, my friends. May we meet again in a better life.”

  “Goodbye, Michael.” Jennings spoke with a solemn reverence. “We’ll succeed. We’ll make sure… We’ll make sure the machine’s never built.”

  “I know. I know you can do it. And… Thank you.”

  Zero-Four turned to Patra and West. He touched their minds for the briefest of moments and sadly smiled.

  “You love each other. Cherish that. There’s so little love anymore. This war’s seen to th
at. Let it flourish. Wherever there’s love, there’s hope that we’ll win this. There’s hope that there’s something worth saving.

  “No goodbyes. We’ll meet again.”

  The stasis fields held them down, slowed their bodies’ systems. They each drifted peacefully off to sleep and their patterns were uploaded into the longboat cache.

  “Will they make it?”

  ((they will.))

  “They are the hope.”

  ((we are all the hope.))

  The longboat shimmered, faded into the future.

  “Goodbye,” Zero-Four whispered to no one.

  “So this is it? This is the big goodbye?”

  (yes, sapphire.)

  “Well, kick some Enemy ass for me.”

  (oh, i’ll try.)

  “And when the time comes…I—I hope you don’t feel it. I hope it’s over quickly.”

  (thank you, ’phire.)

  “Mara…I love you. Really.”

  (i know. perhaps someday we’ll meet in a better time.)

  “I hope.”

  (goodbye, little one.)

  “Goodbye, Mara,” she whispered.

  The longboat departed, sought linkup with Simon.

  ((mara’s longboat has arrived for you, michael.))

  “So what’s the plan, Simon?”

  ((after you board mara’s longboat, the fleet of fifteen operable longboats will whendrop, scattering the last of the human patterns throughout time. you’ll infiltrate the native populace and act as safeguards from any future enemy activity. you’ll perpetuate the judas legacy forever.))

  “And you?”

  ((my forces will whendrop to an instant before the point. targeting direct-line trajectories at the blastpoint, we’ll attempt to invert a shadow drive at point totality, which will repel the reformat virus wave shattering the stream. we’ll destroy any enemy that try to interfere.))

  “So this is it. After all this time, the Purpose is upon us.”

  ((yes.))

  “Simon, good luck. Godspeed.”

  ((thank you, michael. godspeed yourself, my friend.))

  “Let’s do this.”

  Mara’s longboat descended from Simon.

  The longboats dropped behind the rest of the fleet, which was maneuvering into a wedge shape, a V, with Simon at its tip. The spearpoint maneuver.